The three stooges of Ban-Ki-moon and temporary diet of Weerawansa

Dec 27, 2010 6:55:17 PM- transcurrents.com

By S. L. Gunasekara

Conflicting news items about a proposed visit to Sri Lanka, with the blessings of the Government, of the ‘Three Stooges’ of Ban Ki Moon have come virtually simultaneously with a sudden glut of anti-Sri Lanka statements made by various foreign politicians such as William Hague, the former ‘attempted Prime Minister’ of the once ‘Great’ Britain, and currently, the successor to the presumptuous clown David Miliband as Foreign Secretary, and some assorted Senators of the United States of America, who are said to have called for an international investigation into alleged ‘War Crimes’ alleged to have been committed by the Sri Lankan troops in the closing days of the military operations against the gang of underworld criminals called the LTTE.

One more person, namely, Rahul Ghandi, but for whose paternal grandmother and father, the Tamils would not have had to undergo the immense sufferings they underwent at the hands of the LTTE or become IDPs in their thousands, has now added his ‘two cents worth’ to the discordant cacophony of anti-Sri Lanka voices [in the run up to the elections to the State Assembly of Tamil Nadu] stating that not enough is being done for the Tamils of Sri Lanka by the government here and that he would see to it that those Tamils get justice!

One common feature about these charlatans who seek to fatten themselves politically by pandering to those such as the Tamil rowdies and hooligans who misbehaved on the streets of Western Capitals in an effort to save those tormentors of the Tamils in particular, and others in general, called the LTTE when Sri Lanka’s armed forces were on the verge of liberating our people from those tormentors; as well as those Tamil rowdies and hooligans who misbehaved on the streets of London to prevent President Rajapaksa from talking to a students’ association at Oxford; lies in the fact that neither they nor Ban Ki Moon nor any of his predecessors raised a whimper of protest or called for any inquiry:

a) when Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother armed, trained and equipped Sri Lankan terrorists of the LTTE and other separatist gangs on Indian Soil, to commit crimes such as murder, arson, mischief and other acts of terrorism on Sri Lankan Soil;

b) when Rahul Gandhi’s father [subsequently murdered by the LTTE which his grandmother had so armed, trained and equipped] by an act of contemptible thuggery, intimidated our senile President JR Jayewardene into halting military operations against the LTTE, when the Sri Lankan military were on the verge of defeating the LTTE once and for all in 1987, and was hence responsible for the tens of thousands of deaths of our citizens [as well as his own death a few years later] and the sufferings of the Tamil civilians who continued to live under the thrall of the LTTE, thereafter;

c) when the LTTE kidnapped little Tamil children, murdered Tamil civilians as and when they wished, and extorted money from them [I do not refer to the multitude of murders of Sinhalese and Muslim civilians in this context because Sinhalese and Muslims to these foul hypocrites in ‘high places’ are ‘children of a (much) lesser God’]; and/or,

d) when the LTTE suppressed in their entirety, the individual freedom and the right to self-determination of all Tamils living in areas where the LTTE exercised usurped power.

It is evident, therefore, that had our Forces not been able to defeat the LTTE and free our land of terrorism, and had the LTTE continued to kidnap Tamil children, murder Tamil civilians, extort money from them, impose on them a degree of repression unprecedented in the long history of our land, blast buses, trains and crowded city centres, commit mass murders of Sinhalese and Muslim civilians by slaughtering them wholesale while sleeping in their huts, working in their fields or worshipping in their temples and mosques, destroy billions of Rupees worth of State property and bring our economy to a grinding halt, none of these foreign political clowns would have called for any inquiry, whether international or otherwise, or voiced any concern for the problems faced by the Tamils. In short, the ‘grouse’ of these blackguards is that little Sri Lanka has, despite all the obstacles placed in its way by their countries, defeated terrorism decisively which is something that no country in the world was able to do during the past 50 years or so. These undeniable facts prove beyond doubt the wholesale hypocrisy, insincerity and wholly unprincipled opportunism of these despicable political functionaries.

Was it then a coincidence that these frauds made those noises at a time when Moon’s ‘Three Stooges’ were expected to come to Sri Lanka? Or were these events orchestrated?

With the exception of the JVP and JHU, all the parties of the government and the Opposition have let the country down in respect of this planned visit.

The government [which means President Mahinda Rajaspaksa] which/who took a highly commendable principled and courageous stand when Moon appointed his ‘Three Stooges’ and also when the likes of Moon, Hillary Clinton, Milliband, and Kouchner among others sought to give the LTTE a new lease of life and thereby prolong the agony of our land by coercing the government to declare a ceasefire, has evidently had a change of heart or got cold feet and consented to these ‘Three Stooges’ coming to Sri Lanka after first announcing unequivocally that those ‘Three Stooges’ would not be recognised or given visas to come to Sri Lanka.

However, news about the purpose of their proposed visit is indeed contradictory and garbled. One version is the they will come to have ‘discussions’ with or give evidence before the LLRC, while another is the they are coming in furtherance of the purported ‘mandate’ given to them by Moon, which is not to give evidence, but to inquire into the conduct of our Forces and tender advice to Moon about what steps he should take in that regard.

It should be plainly obvious to any person who has eyes to see and wants to see, that no set of foreigners whomsoever has the right, in the absence of consent given by our government, whether by treaty or otherwise, to inquire into and/or arrive at purported ‘findings’ about the conduct of our Forces in defeating a ruthless gang of unrepentant criminals which is what the LTTE was. Thus, any permission given to these ‘Three Stooges’ to enter Sri Lanka and pursue their purported ‘mandate’ from Moon would amount to an admission that foreigners have such right and that our sovereignty and independence are but theoretical concepts.

It is in this context the we must view the brash statement of Lakshman Kiriella, who in my view, is the non-pareil of political opportunists, that the government should give General Fonseka the opportunity of going before or meeting these ‘Three Stooges’, and General Fonseka’s earlier comment the he was prepared to go before any international tribunal and say what he knows, what he heard and what he was told because our troops committed no ‘war crimes’.

Both of them have wholly lost sight of the glaring fact that foreigners have no authority to inquire into our internal affairs, and that by participating in any way in the charade being enacted by these ‘Three Stooges’ we would only be conceding that foreigners have such rights. They have also lost sight of the even more glaring fact that having regard to the antecedents of the ‘Three Stooges’ and of their ‘Patron’ Moon, and the background of the circumstances in which they were appointed, the chances of a ‘snowball’ surviving in a microwave oven are better than those ‘Three Stooges’ arriving at an unbiased and honest ‘finding’.

The version that the ‘Three Stooges’ are coming here to discuss matters with, or to give evidence before the LLRC is plainly nonsensical. If the ‘Three Stooges’ had indeed sought to come for such a purpose, they should have first made an application to the Commission to do so, leaving it to the Commission which is independent and not subject to the orders of the President, to either accede to or deny their request. There can be no doubt that no such request has been made of the LLRC. Besides, what personal knowledge can any of the ‘Three Stooges’ have about the last days of the so called ‘war’.

Whatever (if any) they know can only be hearsay – thus, there is nothing material that they could contribute to the deliberations of the LLRC. As regards having a ‘discussion’ with the Commissioners, there is not, to the best of my knowledge and belief, any provision of law or precedent for any set of persons to have ‘discussions’ with the Commissioners in respect of their mandate or functions. Thus, there is clearly no reason for giving the presumptuous ‘Three Stooges’ an opportunity to have such ‘discussions’ or to give such evidence.

Thus, whichever of the conflicting versions is true, it behooves President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government to stand by the country by honouring and not departing from their earlier principled decision not to recognise in any way, grant visas to, or permit any of the ‘Three Stooges’ to set foot on the soil of this country.

There is a further matter of relevance in this regard, and that is the role of Minister Wimal Weerawansa who, with the blessings of the government, went on a temporary diet by skipping three or four meals in a highly publicised and equally puerile charade opposite the UN Headquarters, describing that nonsensical exercise as a ‘fast unto death’ until or unless Moon disbanded the ‘Three Stooges’.

Moon has not disbanded the ‘Three Stooges’ and Weerawansa has not died of starvation as he then threatened. What will he now do if the Government of which he is a member abandons its earlier principled stance and permits these ‘Three Stooges’ to pollute our soil. Having disgraced himself and the country by that puerile exercise, Weerawansa is under a manifest duty to make a public declaration of his stance on this matter and what he proposes to do in that regard.